Old Home Week – August 4, 2014

Opening the shed door . . . and I don’t have to finish the sentence.  You’ve already guessed who was hiding inside its inner edge.  Isn’t he wearing a handsome jacket?  If you look closely, you can see the suction cup on the bottom of one of his left toes!

Aug. 4-14-tree frog-1024

It wasn’t quite eight o’clock when I greeted my neighbour in her back yard.

“Do you want to see the bird?” she asked.  I high-tailed it into the house for the camera. 

Aug. 4-14-Pipinka on-1024-finger

But this wasn’t Pipinka’s first meal of the day.  Oh no.  He chirps for breakfast at 5:00 a.m., and he expects to get it!  Mrs. B cuts her hand-dug fish worms into 1” pieces, which he prefers more than the scrambled eggs.

Aug. 4-14-Pipinks's second meal-1024-of the day, 8 a.m

With Pipinka on her sweatered forearm, Mrs. B showed me how she lowers her arm, and coaxes softly, “Fly.  Fly.”  Each time, Pipinka flutters his wings, but hangs on with his feet.  “His wings are getting stronger,” she observed.

“I was sitting with him in my hand yesterday, and he began singing to me,” she said.  “He really did.  I think he was thanking me for rescuing him.  Tears began falling down my cheeks, would you believe it?”

Mr. McD and I took all of our breaks and lunch out on the lawn swing, not wanting to miss the sight of Lord and Lady Wren launching their prized babies on their maiden flight.  Maybe this would be the day.  Twice I saw one of them carrying a white blob out of the nest, removing waste.  A few times, they were both inside the nest.  There was no dawdling on the front porch before or after any of their entries, which they often used to do. Not today.  It was Zoom!  Off to fetch more grub!  Zoom!  In to serve it up!  Well, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

From seemingly outer space, an alien creature cruised silently into the petunia patch and filled his sizeable tank from several gas pumps!  If he had flown in my direction, I would have screamed!!!

What in the world is he?  (I lightened the photo quite a bit so you could see the creature inside the dark-purple petunia, so the creature itself would not actually be this light in colour.)

Aug. 4-14-moth

Now, who should come back to pay us a visit but Old Dag the Dragonfly?  Wherever has he been?  This was truly becoming an Old Home Week day!  Old Dag loves to land on a sunny step,  turn on his rotors, go straight up for a few feet, and back down again.  He repeats these manoeuvres a few times.   With so many aviation crashes happening all over the world, no doubt Old Dag is carrying out the instructions in his Preventive Maintenance Manual, endeavouring to avoid any unpleasant or unplanned landings or demerit points.  Mr. McD did not hear the control tower’s ”All clear for take-off!,” but Old Dag did, and zoomed off into the blue.

Aug. 4-14-dragonfly-size-OK

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